Polar or Fitbit???

Hey everyone,

Okay I realllllllllly want to get something that will help me accurately track the calories I burn. I'm a crazy person about tracking how many calories I consume so I want to make sure I know exactly how much I'm getting rid of.

I've been looking at the Polar FT4 and FT7 as well as the Fitbit. Feedback? Suggestions? Pros/cons? Anything???

Help! Thanks in advance!

I have an FT4 and a Jawbone UP. Personally, if I had the money, I would not use either of these, I'd replace it with the Basis band.

Polar is more accurate!

They do different things and are intended to serve different purposes.

Get the one that meets your needs best.

I have both. They are two totally different things. The polar is a heartrate monitor the fitbit is a glorified pedometer. I have the polar ft7 I use it during my cardio to get my calories burned. I have an older fitbit the ultra. I wear it all day EXCEPT while doing my cardio to get my daily steps. I love them both! They have been useful tools on my weight loss journey.

i have the pink polar ft4 and love it!

Fitbit tracks everything you do all day, every day.

HRMs are mediocre-to-good (depending on how closely your VO2max matches up with what the HRM manufacturer guesses) for steady-state cardio workouts and nothing else.

Different devices for different purposes.

I settled on the Polar FT4 and I'm really happy with it.Polar got a lot of good reviews both here and elsewhere on the web. If I remember right, the FT7 gave you connectivity with the Polar site that I wasn't interested in so it wasn't worth the extra money for me. Previous models of the FT models didn't allow the user to change the batteries, but that's since been changed - I changed mine a few months ago with no problems. I've gone swimming with my FT4 with no problems, you just have to be careful not to push any button under water. The chest strap is very comfortable and I don't even notice it, and the "watch" piece is easy to set up and use.

But the Polar HRM's are only for steady-state cardio and don't work well unless your HR is raised, so it won't work well for weight lifting or for use all day.

I've been looking fat Fitbit to get a better idea of my TDEE an the bonus of the sleep monitor. I've kinda decided on either the Fitbit One or the Flex but I haven't purchased one yet. You wear them all day and they both do the same thing, but you wear the Flex on your wrist and the One is more like a pedometer that you'd wear on your waistband or on your bra.

I found my Polar FT4 online for about $65 and you can find deals on them sometimes. The Fitbits run about $100 and I haven't seen any difference in pricing between retailers or online.

Gadgets can be really motivating - Have fun!

I use the Polar FT for swimming and as far as I know, the calorie burn is accurate. I also use it to stay in my target heart range while exercising.
I use the Fitbit One daily to track steps and sleep. I like the Fitbit for determining exercise calories because it deducts your base calorie burn from the "extra" calories before determining how many calories to add to your diet for the day.
They're both great, I use them for different reasons.

I have a Polar & LOVE it!

Not used a fitbit but a girl at my gym does and sounds like its geared more towards runners??

X

Quite the opposite. HRMs are best suited for steady state cardio like running. The Fitbit tracks all the little stuff you do throughout the day.

I know this is kind of off topic, but for those of you who have responded saying you use the polar ft4 or ft7... has anybody found it to OVERrestimate calories burned? I made a post about this earlier but did not receive any definite answers. I have my height, weight, gender, and age set correctly and it seems to work for other activities, but for jogging it records a crazy burn! (Today, for instance, I jogged 6 miles and it said I burned 849 calories.) Anyone??

Happens to a lot of people. HRMs guess at your VO2max, a measure of how efficiently your body can deliver oxygen to body tissues. As you get more fit, your VO2max goes up. If the HRM thinks your VO2max is higher than it is, it's going to assume that you're delivering much more oxygen to your tissues, and therefore burning many more calories, than you actually are.

BTW, a woman of your size will burn about 80-100 calories per mile, max, while jogging. 849 calories for a 6 mile jog is well outside that range.

I have both and they serve different purposes. I use the FitBit to track my daily steps and find myself walking extra if I'm near my goal. It is not good for tracking my workouts which are HIIT circuit usually incorporating core and weight work. I do wear it during workouts because we will often run during our session and want to count the steps. For workouts I use a Polar FT4 HRM and found the MFP calculations were nearly double what my HRM calculated. Also, I do not sync my FitBit to MFP because I didn't like it automatically adjusting my calories and knew there was a bit of doubling between FitBit and my HRM since I wear the FitBit during workouts.

FYI, HRMs do not estimate accurately for HIIT, and they are extremely bad for circuit training and resistance training/lifting.

I have both and they serve different purposes. I use the FitBit to track my daily steps and find myself walking extra if I'm near my goal. It is not good for tracking my workouts which are HIIT circuit usually incorporating core and weight work. I do wear it during workouts because we will often run during our session and want to count the steps. For workouts I use a Polar FT4 HRM and found the MFP calculations were nearly double what my HRM calculated. Also, I do not sync my FitBit to MFP because I didn't like it automatically adjusting my calories and knew there was a bit of doubling between FitBit and my HRM since I wear the FitBit during workouts.

FYI, HRMs do not estimate accurately for HIIT, and they are extremely bad for circuit training and resistance training/lifting.

Our sessions are usually 12-15 stations with a mix of cardio, weight resistance (body weight or plates/bars/bells), and core. We work for 40 seconds going as fast as possible or doing as many reps with as high a weight as possible depending on the exercise. We then have a 20 second rest session to catch our breath and move to the next station. Once I warm up, my heart rate is in the same range as it would be if I were doing steady state cardio like rowing or treadmill. Why would my HRM not be as accurate in this situation?

A variety of reasons. First of all, weight training increases your heart rate significantly, but does not burn many calories. Certainly not as many as the heart rate would suggest. This is why HRMs are terrible for any weight training.

On top of that, the heart rate induced by HIIT doesn't correspond well to calorie burn either.

The main reason for this is that tissue demands for oxygen can skyrocket for short periods of time during HIIT and weight training, but since it takes so long for blood to actually get from your lungs to those tissues heart rate is somewhat artificially inflated. The reason HRMs work well for steady-state cardio is that tissue demands are constant for longer periods of time, so heart rate can settle into a blood volume that works for the current demand over a while.

HRMs are intended for steady state cardio. It's only in steady state cardio that your heart rate can be reliably converted to a calorie burn, assuming you know what your VO2max is and the HRM is aware of it. They're not good at HIIT and weight training.

BTW, a woman of your size will burn about 80-100 calories per hour, max, while jogging. 849 calories for a 6 mile jog is well outside that range.

That's definitely more what I was thinking it should be. Is there a way to fix this on my HRM, or is it basically useless? I do like seeing my average heart rate, but I mainly got it to get a more accurate picture of how many calories I burn in each workout. Thanks!!